Plough plane / rabbet plane / neither?

[Michael Dayton]

Hi guys,

I'm building my second project and doing my first mortise and tenon joinery. I'm having trouble truing things up and getting all the joints gap-free. (Mortises and tenons look pretty easy when those guys on TV do it!).

I'm thinking about a rabbet plane as an option to clean up my cuts. I've had mixed success using chisels. The guy at Highland Hardware (http://www.highlandwoodworking.com (http://www.highlandwoodworking.com/)) suggested a plough plane as a possible option. This sounded good to me at the time; I have a pretty cheap table saw and dados are sometimes a bit rough and could use some smoothing. So, if the plough plane will do rabbets and tenons and dados, why not get it?

I didn't buy the plane at the time (left the checkbook at home) and now am having second thoughts about the plough plane.

As I look in the catalog, I don't think I will be happy with the plough plane for cleaning tenons; I just think that is a job the plane doesn't seem designed to do.

Do you guys have any suggestions? Plough plane? Rabbet plane? Forget the plane and get a good rasp? Forget all this and do it with chisels? (My personal favorite is "buy a good table saw with a great fence so your tenons are straight to begin with". I'm trying to get buy-in from my wife on that one!)

Thanks!
Mike

[Ron Dunn]

Use this problem as the excuse to buy a Jointmaker Pro from Bridge City Toolworks :)

I could never make a good M&T joint, which is why I fell in love with dowelling.

The best joint I was able to make was on my router table, but the size of the mortice was limited to around 1/2" because of the scariness of the plunge. Tenons were easy - just repeated passes over a flat-bottom bit - easy to keep the sides square and parallel, and easy fine-adjustment.

Bandsaw cutting didn't really work for me. It was OK for sawing tenon cheeks that I cleaned up with a chisel, but did nothing to help with mortices.

Tablesaw tenons were just too scarey.

Hand cutting? Hah! I'm a results person, not a process person, and I really hated myself over the amount of wood I ruined trying to cut square and parallel tenon cheeks by hand. Hours of work with no useful output at the end isn't my idea of fun, nor my wife's idea of return on investment in tools.

[Derek Cohen]

One of the most overlooked hand tools - both by handttoolers as powertoolers -is the humble router plane. For those sawing tenons by hand, unless you are very talented, you will need to tune the tenon-mortice fit.

While it is not my first choice for tuning tenon faces (I have a choice of a skew block plane or a joinery float), the router plane is perfect for this task. This is especially so for those that struggle with the task of straigtening the tenon.

http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ToolReviews/The%20Veritas%20Router%20Plane_html_3e434ccb.jpg

The router plane has a multitude of other uses, so it is not a "waste" purchase for this task: used with a fence, the router plane is a good substitute for a plough plane when making drawer grooves - in fact it is the tool of choice for stopped grooves and stopped dados. It can also do a fair job as a substitute rebate plane. And let's not forget hinge mortices (or any other task that requires surfacing).

I have both the LV large and small router planes. Still, yesterday I decided to make one for myself - and OWT ("Old Woman's Tooth"). This cost a few cents and is a fun project. Everything (including the blade and knob) took about 3 hours.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Tools%20that%20I%20have%20made/Router%20Plane/OWT2.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Tools%20that%20I%20have%20made/Router%20Plane/OWT4.jpg

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Mike Henderson]

The way to do tenons on a table saw is to use a sled and a stop block. Let's say you want a 2" long tenon. You set the stop block so that the distance from the stop block to the other side of the blade is 2".

Then you set the depth of the cut. For 3/4" stock you generally make your tenon 3/8", so you want your cut to be 3/16". I make my cuts a bit less than 3/16" and trim down to fit the mortise.

Then start cutting, back and forth with the sled, moving your piece of wood inward each pass to the stop block until it hits. Cut all four sides. Of course, this is faster with a dado blade but you can do it with a regular blade, only 1/8" at a time. This leaves the tenon cheeks rough but epoxy glue will fill nicely.

To make your mortise, drill out the hole with a drill bit that's just a bit smaller than 3/8" (maybe 5/16") and trim the sides smooth with a chisel. What I do is make my mortise first, then fit my tenon to the mortise when I'm cutting it on the table saw.

This technique isn't neander but it's fast and works well. But you need a good table saw sled - which everyone who has a table saw should have.

Mike

[James Mittlefehldt]

I have used chisels, a skewed rabbet plane, and a Stanley 78, all worked well, I thank I took a more controlled cut with the planes, the chisel seemed a bit haphazard. I don't think though a plough plane would do for that job, unless it was the only tool available to you.

[Robert Rozaieski]

I use a wide chisel, 1" or more, to adjust miscut tenons. Chisels allow you to take wood only where you want to while a rabbet plane is going to take a shaving from the entire tenon cheek and not really fix the problem, just make a thinner miscut tenon. If your tenon is straight and square to begin with and just too fat a rabbet plane will work fine, but if you need to correct a miscut tenon, a chisel or the router plane as Derek noted, are your best bets. To tune shoulders, nothing works as well as a chisel. I've never had good results with a shoulder plane.

I also recommend practising sawing to a straight line. It's really not that hard to do with a little practice but tenon cheeks and dovetails are not the place to practice. Make a few straight line rips and crosscuts by hand for some secondary pieces like drawer sides or bottoms or case backs and see if your skills don't improve. Apprentices didn't learn to saw straight by cutting tenons and dovetails right away on the first day. It always puzzles me why one would do all of their rough cutting on chop saws and table saws and then attempt to do hand cut joinery and wonder why they are having trouble :D. Sawing a straight line is not a given as soon as you pick up a hand saw. It does take some practice. Practice sawing to a line by hand ripping and crosscuting your rough stock and your hand joinery skills will improve very quickly. Once you can saw a straight line, then you will have graduated to the table saw and/or chop saw for speeding up your rough dimensioning. Keep practicing and soon your tenons will be fine right from the saw without any adjustment ;) (ok, maybe not all the time :o).

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2117/2413528498_33e199f712.jpg?v=0

[Jeremy Kriewaldt]

I suppose I'm old fashioned, but I reckon that the od-timers often knew what they were doing. So I use a block plane (skew if it is available) to trim the cheeks of the tenons and a shoulder plane to square up and clean the shoulders.

As for the sawing, I admit that I often use the TS to make the shoulder cuts and to nibble the wide side of the cheek - the crosscut sled makes that simple and safe. I always to the tenons after cutting the mortices - then I know how fat to make the tenons so that the planes are only used to ease the tenons for a firm fit in the mortice. Since I don't try to cut right to the last .0001mm that takes a lot of the pain out of the exercise.

It also leads to the idea of doing tenons in the middle of a piece of stock - in effect make four dados around the stock whose width is equal to twice the length of the tenons (plus kerf) and then cut that in half.

For some reason working in the middle of a piece of wood always feels safer and easier to me than working on the end! You can use your router or router plane to clean up a bit before cutting the tenon in half and then you get to support the router or plane on both sides - makes it much easier!

[Michael Dayton]

Hi guys,

Thanks for all the feedback. This is a big help, and I'm thinking seriously about a router plane now. In the meantime I will get back to work with the chisels.

For those who mentioned the table saw sled, I tried making one once, but it didn't work well for me because I had trouble getting the guides to ride in the miter slots. I'm using a portable Makita, which is a decent enough saw for outdoor work, but the fence is a little wobbly for finer work. The miter slots, however, are oddly sized and are not flat-bottomed. I've had trouble buying accessories which are supposed to fit in "standard" miter slots. I'm not sure why Makita chose to do that.

(In general I think it is a great saw for the money I paid... I've just gotten to the point where the saw is holding me back some).

Anyway, thanks for the great advice.

Mike

[Mike Henderson]

Hi guys,

Thanks for all the feedback. This is a big help, and I'm thinking seriously about a router plane now. In the meantime I will get back to work with the chisels.

For those who mentioned the table saw sled, I tried making one once, but it didn't work well for me because I had trouble getting the guides to ride in the miter slots. I'm using a portable Makita, which is a decent enough saw for outdoor work, but the fence is a little wobbly for finer work. The miter slots, however, are oddly sized and are not flat-bottomed. I've had trouble buying accessories which are supposed to fit in "standard" miter slots. I'm not sure why Makita chose to do that.

(In general I think it is a great saw for the money I paid... I've just gotten to the point where the saw is holding me back some).

Anyway, thanks for the great advice.

Mike
You may know this, but you can just make your runners from wood. Just cut them the right width and not as deep as the slots in the table - the sled should not ride on them. Put a bit of wax on them and they'll slide very nicely.

The big issue in making a sled (usually) is getting it square and not in making the runners. But that's another story.

Mike

[Jeremy Kriewaldt]

Another way to make a crosscut sled is the way that the owners of Triton Workcentres do it - Tritons have very odd mitre slots, so the Tritoneers just locate the sled runners on the outside edges of the table. I have made one myself and it works really well. Here's a link (http://www.users.bigpond.com/bob.jager/triton_sled.htm) to a site that explains it (in the context of a Triton, but I am sure you can work out a suitable adaptation using the same idea).

Good luck

[Bob Smalser]

The most common method is to simply cut the tenon a tad fat then scrub it to a heel-of-the-hand drive fit using a shoulder plane.

No muss, no fuss and very fast. It'll easily adjust misaligned shoulders, too.

http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL12/1104763/5536778/70922238.jpg

[Michael Dayton]

Wow. That's a cool idea, and would work with my saw. I'll give that a try. Thanks, Jeremy.

[Billy Chambless]

The best part of this thread, to me, is that at least four different solutions, all of them workable, have been put forth. I think that's a lesson in itself.

[Hank Knight]

Michael,

You said your problem was getting "gap free" mortise and tenon joints. By that I assume you meant you were getting gaps at the shoulders - where the two members meet. For trimming tenon shoulders a shoulder plane is the tool for the job - that 's what is was designed for. It also does a good trimming tenon cheeks as Bob Smalser pointed out. Most of the advice you've gotten here is directed at trimming tenon cheeks. None of the tools mentioned does a good job trimming shoulders, except for chisels and Smalser's shoulder plane recommendation. If you want the tool that's designed for trimming up mortise and tenon joints, look at a shoulder plane. They are specialty tools, but there is really no substitute for them in this application.

My $.02

Hank